Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  “Show me your Ts?” He for sure meant tits, right? Sadie blushed just thinking of the word.

  But this was Tane. Tane from Quiz Bowl with purple nail polish. He’d never dated anyone, as far as Sadie knew. He’d probably never seen a girl’s anything. Being his first seemed appropriate, given what they’d been through. Plus, she rationalized, Snapchats disappeared. It wasn’t Instagram Live.

  Sadie glanced at her closed door and pulled her white shirt up over her bra. She pulled just one of the cups down and felt goose bumps form all the way up her stomach. She held the phone over her head and squealed, the thrill of taking this snap matched by the fear of getting caught.

  Hurry, she thought as she set up the pic, her nipple—she hated that word—in the center. Her hair swirled over the rug and just a sliver of her chin showed in the upper corner of the frame. She captioned the message, “I’ve never done this before,” and sent it to Tane.

  Alice Sullivan

  On Sunday, after Patrick had Ubered back to the airport for the second week of the Energy Lab trial, Alice locked her bedroom door and made herself call Julienne at their prearranged time.

  “I’m so sorry,” she began as soon as Julienne answered. Alice flashed back to the call with Janna Lagerhead she’d made just nine days before. Let this be the end of big dramatic apologies for a while, Alice thought. And then she remembered she still had to grovel to Nadia.

  “Let’s start fresh.” Julienne sounded just like she had in the session with Teddy: calm, friendly, and commanding.

  “Good idea.” Alice breathed deeply and channeled Oprah.

  “First, I’d love to talk about Teddy for just a minute, since you already brought me in on that.”

  Alice shivered. “Of course.” She slid down on her bed, resting her head against her leaf-print sham.

  Julienne launched into a thorough description of the nature therapy groups Nadia had told her about. “Perfect for Teddy,” Julienne said. She spoke for several minutes about walking barefoot outside, which seemed to be a key component of her program. “Earthing,” Julienne called it, and Alice was grateful she wasn’t having this conversation live. Her eye rolls became more and more exaggerated as Julienne spoke about dirt and electrons. Oprah, she thought.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Julienne said, “but I could forward you the research that shows that earthing increases antioxidants and decreases inflammation.” Alice blinked as she registered again the similarities in Julienne’s voice and her mother’s, their cadence and tenor remarkably alike. “And, anecdotally, in my practice I’ve seen an almost one hundred percent success rate in the improvement of sleep.”

  Alice imagined Teddy’s protests against “earthing” with Donovan on the weekends. “Teddy doesn’t have a problem with sleep,” she said.

  “That’s good news.” Julienne sounded dispassionate. “But usually in these cases of emotional dysregulation, we’re seeing sleep disruptions on some level. You might just not be aware of them.”

  Alice gritted her teeth and swallowed a retort about how she thought she knew her child well enough. She clearly didn’t. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been blindsided by his behavior, and they’d never have ended up in Julienne’s office in the first place. And, Alice realized, if she were a better decision maker, she wouldn’t have snuck into Green Haven to do reconnaissance at her son’s potential expense. Alice threw an arm over her face, the flannel of her shirt soft against her cheek.

  “Look,” Julienne said, “I’ll be honest with you. You’ve made things awkward here, right? But based on what Evelyn has told me, and based on my conversation with Teddy, I feel strongly that he could benefit from our program. He’s a great kid.” Alice’s heart swelled just a little. Julienne could see Teddy’s goodness from just one session. “Your family,” Julienne continued, “you don’t really get outside much, do you? And even thinking of your job, you’re singularly focused on interiors?”

  Alice frowned and sank deeper into the duvet. What was wrong with being focused on interiors? And Teddy played soccer outside all the time. She was about to say so when Julienne continued. “Teddy mentioned he plays soccer?”

  Alice felt vindicated. That was an outdoor activity. Adrian even “earthed” during the games, barefoot on the sidelines. “He does. We spend a lot of time outside,” she added, “watching him.”

  “That’s one of the great paradoxes of organized sports. It seems like you’re doing the right thing—your kids are outside and learning life lessons about winning and losing, right? But parents don’t consider the impact of the fungicides and pesticides that those fields are doused in.”

  Alice increased the pressure of her arm against the bridge of her nose.

  “We’re talking neurotoxicity that can cause long-term health effects that in many cases outweigh the benefits of the exercise in the first place.”

  Alice tried to keep her voice level. “I feel like with all the research we’ve seen on childhood obesity and addiction to social media . . . Being outside at all is probably worth the risk? And,” she added, “doesn’t your kid play soccer?”

  “Yes, and I pad my stats with forest bathing.” Julienne laughed, the same chortle Alice had been hearing her whole life from her mother.

  “Forest bathing?” Alice felt her quads tense.

  “It’s the Japanese practice of being in nature.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I’m going to recommend my colleague Milo Underhill’s group,” Julienne said. “He’s great, and seeing as I’m related to Teddy, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to continue his treatment. That’s obvious, right?”

  Alice flopped her free arm on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I’ll have him do the group.” It seemed the only option, both to appease Julienne and also because it wasn’t as if she had a backup therapist waiting in the wings. “But—” She couldn’t hang up without making a last request, even though she could feel her cheeks heating. “Could we please not tell my—our—um, Evelyn?” God damn it! “About this? I’d really rather she not know that I . . .” Alice tipped her head back.

  “You’d rather she not know that you risked your child’s mental health in order to spy on me?” Julienne said it lightly, but Alice deflated further.

  “I said I was sorry,” Alice offered.

  “I really don’t want secrets getting in the way of my relationship with Evelyn. There have already been too many of those, don’t you think?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Alice cringed.

  “But,” Julienne said confidently, betraying none of the awkwardness that Alice was drowning in, “I’m not actually allowed to tell Evelyn. HIPAA and all. You know”—she paused—“ethics.”

  “Right.” Alice turned her face into the covers.

  “I recommend that you tell her, though,” Julienne continued. “Like I said, there are too many secrets. And what are the chances, anyway, that she never finds out?” None, Alice realized, chastised. She imagined introducing Teddy to Julienne’s family someday, as her mother would undoubtedly desire.

  As soon as Alice hung up, she felt itchy with tension, like she needed to go for a long, hard run. As she changed into her workout clothes, she realized the miles wouldn’t make her feel better unless she also cleared her conscience. Calling her mother seemed too hard, but she could start with Nadia. She opened her text app and clicked on the thread in which she’d said that Donovan was worse than Teddy. She shook her head at her hubris. “I’m an idiot,” she wrote. “And I’m so, so sorry.”

  Tane Lagerhead

  Everything felt different when Tane walked through the front door of Elm Creek Junior High on Monday. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He saw Sadie’s shiny skin and the brown of the nipple—even the word made him shiver. He could almost feel little ridges like goose bumps around its eraser-tip center.

  Over and over again on Sunday, and again tha
t morning during breakfast and on the bus, he’d checked his phone to verify that the whole thing had indeed happened. If he hadn’t taken a video of Sadie’s snap with his mom’s old iPad, the one he’d used all the time before he’d finally gotten a phone, he might not have even trusted his memory.

  If he’d screenshotted Sadie’s pic, she would have gotten a Snapchat alert, but since he took a video on another device, it would be his to keep. She’d never know. His one chance to see actual boob. He had planned to tell Sadie that he was kidding about the pic when she refused. “LOL,” he’d planned to type.

  But he was ready when she responded just in case. And then she’d done it. Once he had the video on the iPad, he’d messaged it to himself and deleted it from the tablet.

  Tane looked down at his favorite striped T-shirt that morning, his joggers, his navy Brooks. He had given up on coolness in elementary. He was the weird kid, the mythology whiz and Quiz Bowl captain with purple nail polish. But somehow, none of those nerd flags had mattered that weekend when he’d asked Sadie for the picture.

  He looked up from his phone as the bus rolled past Elm Creek Park. “There it is!” shrieked Mikaela Heffernan from the back. He swiveled his head in time to see another hot pink dick, this one painted on the garbage can near the soccer field. The spray painter had added a hashtag near the right ball, but nothing followed it. The girls were still laughing about it when Tane pressed play one more time on his phone. There again was the proof of his changing life: Sadie Yoshida with her bra off.

  At school, he could hardly wait for math class, the first time he’d see her during the day. He wondered if he was supposed to treat her differently now or maybe put his arm around her. She found him in the hallway after choir, in the passing time before math. She’d detoured, he realized, to meet him. He smiled and tried hard not to stare directly at her chest.

  “Hey,” she said. Sadie yanked her ponytail in the same way he’d seen her do in Quiz Bowl, usually when she was stumped about an answer.

  “Hey.” He froze. Would they pretend that nothing had happened?

  She leaned in and whispered, “I can’t believe I, like, did that.” Tane looked over her head at Mikaela, who was staring at the two of them from down the hall. Did Mikaela know about the Snapchat? So far, Tane hadn’t told anyone.

  “I can’t believe it either,” Tane said.

  They walked away from Mikaela, each carrying an algebra textbook. Tane tried to think of something to say, but all of his ideas—What did you do last weekend? or Have you thought of a Halloween costume?—seemed stupid. Finally, he landed on “Did you do your math homework? Number five was impossible.” And then he blushed. It was true that number five had been impossible. He tried to imagine Sadie lying on that pink rug, the one he’d seen in the picture, with her book open. He glanced down at her chest at the same time she looked up at him.

  “The homework was really hard,” she agreed.

  Don’t be weird, he told himself, and then asked another question about rational numbers.

  “You can text me about that stuff,” Sadie said as they took their seats. “I usually get the homework.”

  “Cool.” Tane dropped his book on his desktop and flipped through his notebook to the most recent problems. Sadie turned away from him to talk to Chloe Cushing. Has Chloe ever seen Sadie with her bra off?

  Stop it, he commanded. Now that he’d gotten his first conversation with Sadie over with, things could be normal, right? Normal by lunchtime? Normal, except that he could look at that pic whenever he wanted. He could see it a million times a day if he felt like it. And he was pretty sure that most of the seventh grade, not McCoy Blumenfeld and definitely not Teddy Sullivan, had ever gotten something like that from an actual person, and definitely not from someone as hot as Sadie Yoshida.

  Alice Sullivan

  Teddy appeared in Alice’s door frame after she’d read with Aidy and tucked her in. Alice felt victorious after twenty-seven minutes of actual level E reading and held a tepid cup of chamomile in both hands.

  “Can I have my phone?” Teddy blurted.

  Alice smiled. She’d been waiting for this request but also “taking his lead” as her parenting manuals suggested.

  Before she could answer him, Teddy piped up again. “Don’t you, like, need me to have it in order to pick me up from soccer?” He paused. “Or whatever?”

  Solid effort, she thought. “Yes,” she said, and then steeled herself. “But I’ve made some adjustments to our family rules.” She took a breath. Alice had been skeptical when Meredith had told her about the monitoring software she’d installed on Sadie’s phone last winter. Alice remembered thinking that parents should demonstrate trust in their kids. Now, Teddy had proven totally unworthy. Meredith, once again, had been right. Not that Alice could give her any credit, seeing as they weren’t speaking. The sense of accomplishment she’d enjoyed after finishing the reading dissipated.

  As Alice prepared to launch into her phone plan with Teddy, she felt nerves flutter beneath her breastbone. Before last week, it had never occurred to her to be wary of her child. He’d been an open book—not always perfectly behaved, but always easy to figure out. Now, she couldn’t help thinking of the Phil Donahue show, those episodes her mother had watched when Alice was little, parents crying about their teens’ reckless behavior. Her mother used to talk back to the television screen. “Open your eyes!” she’d say, as if raising teens were just common sense.

  “What adjustments?” Teddy asked.

  Alice glanced at herself in the asymmetrical mirror she’d hung over her dresser. Her eyeliner had migrated past her lower lid, and she wiped the smudge away with her index finger. “Why don’t you sit down.” Alice pointed at her duvet, the large printed leaf pattern rumpled in the places she’d already sat. She walked to her closet to retrieve Teddy’s phone from a summer handbag, a new hiding place where he’d never look.

  “I’m going to give this back to you, but you’ll have to sign a contract.” She’d done online research for this part and edited one she’d found on some parenting expert’s website. She plucked a printed copy out of the drawer in her bedside table and handed it to Teddy. “Take a look.” She sat beside him. “Dad and I have agreed on these conditions, and if you’re in agreement as well, you sign. And then you can have your phone back.”

  She sipped her tea while he read the rules.

  “You’re going to look at my texts?” Teddy asked.

  Alice had gone back and forth on this point. “I’m not going to read every one, and I didn’t purchase the cloning software.” Teddy looked blank, so she added, “That’s the type of program that lets me see all of your keystrokes—everything you type and everything you click.” Teddy’s nostrils flared, an expression she remembered from his toddlerhood. “I didn’t get that,” Alice reiterated. “But Dad and I will periodically scan your text messages. And you’ll have to let us do it at will.”

  “At will?” Alice couldn’t quite read his tone, but so far, he wasn’t yelling or screaming. He hadn’t stormed back to his room and slammed the door.

  “It means whenever we ask, you have to let us. Why don’t you keep going?” She pointed at the contract. “You see you’ll have to delete your Finsta.” She felt embarrassed just thinking about his alter ego, @TedBaller420. As if he even knew what 420 meant. She’d searched his room from top to bottom when he’d been on a mandated walk with Weasley and found absolutely no evidence of drug paraphernalia, thank God. “And Dad and I can look at your Instagram anytime.”

  “No Snapchat?” Teddy asked.

  “That’s right.” Alice felt her confidence building.

  “But everyone has it. People use that now instead of texting.”

  “It’s non-negotiable,” Alice said. She tried to sound like Julienne, calm but definite. “You’ll have to decide whether it’s worth having a phone without it.”

&nb
sp; “What’s this about parental controls?” Teddy arrived at the bottom of the page.

  “Your phone will turn off at nine p.m.” She’d stolen this rule directly from Meredith. “I’ve installed an app on my phone that controls it. It’ll turn off all of your apps except calling.”

  “That’s completely unfair.”

  Alice glanced at herself again in the mirror, hoping her face reflected her determination. Not bad, she thought. “You can choose,” she told Teddy. “You can either sign this contract, or not have a phone.” Teddy held the paper taut between his hands and Alice wondered if he might tear it up. “After all,” Alice said, aiming for lightness, “Dad and I didn’t have cell phones until we were in college.”

  “College?” Teddy’s eyes bulged, and Alice nodded. “Okay,” Teddy finally said. “It’s not like you’re giving me a freaking choice.”

  Alice winced at “freaking,” though it could have been worse.

  She grabbed a pen from her nightstand and held it out to Teddy. “Sign at the bottom.”

  “Really? We’re actually signing?” Teddy sounded pissed but stared greedily at his phone. Alice glanced at the time on her alarm clock. It was already 8:14. Teddy’s apps would automatically turn off at nine.

  “I want things to be official,” Alice said. “No Finsta, no Snapchat, no angry DMs or texts. Talk to Dad and me if you’re upset about something online.” She held the phone out to him. “You’ve got forty-six minutes until the apps turn off.”

  Teddy left her room without saying anything, his thumbs already scrolling.

  Teddy Sullivan

  Whittaker said Teddy’s new class schedule, which he started on Tuesday, would give him a fresh start. The assistant principal had separated him in classes from all of his friends, and it wasn’t until Teddy made it to the lunchroom that he even saw McCoy or Landon or Sadie. Her birthday was the next day, he knew—October 30, just a day before Halloween. She’d had about eight ghost-themed birthday parties over the years. He wondered if she was having one this year, if he just wasn’t invited.